Ethnographic research on drug use among Cubans in Dade County, Florida is based upon a study sample recruited from natural ongoing social settings through network analysis. Drug-using behavior is viewed as a coping strategy in the repertoire of adaptive behavior developed subsequent to the migration. The techniques of participant-observation and in-depth interviewing will be used to gather social-cultural data, with special emphasis given to major relational systems (e.g. family, religious, associational, informal, educational). The relational systems of family and informal peer groupings, with their associated customary behavior, values and structure of interaction, will be highlighted due to these systems' prominence in the social world of the subjects. Life history interviews will be a major source of data. The focus will be on the effects of the mass migration to the United States. That move required considerable social adjustment as revealed in the history of family relationships during early years. Drug use is measured as a corollary of these adjustment processes, as an aspect of overall coping strategies. Thus, the particular cultural background of the Cubans in the disruptive migration process produces a social climate with unique patterns incorporating the consumption of drugs.